Heart Diseases in Children

By Medical Expert Team

Jul 20 , 2015 | 1 min read

10 out of 1000 children are born with heart disease all over the world. These children have defect in the formation of heart in mother's womb. Cause of this problem is not well defined till date although some heart defects are inherited from parents. Some babies are born blue and some appear normal just after birth but disease manifests later on in these babies.

IF BABY IS HAVING FOLLOWING SYMPTOMS THEN HE CAN HAVE HEART DISEASE:

- Difficulty in feeding
- Increased rate of breathing
- Poor weight gain
- Frequent pneumonia
- Increased sweating during feeding
- Blue lips, tongue or nails
- Increase blood pressure
- Breathlessness on exertion
- Unusually fast heart beat
- Chest pain
- Unusual sound in heart which is known as heart murmur

Heart diseases in children can sometimes be life threatening. If the baby is suspected to have heart disease, then he should be immediately taken to child heart specialist and his advice regarding further management should be taken. Heart disease in children can be easily diagnosed by a paediatric heart specialist with a simple test known as echocardiography. We can even diagnose heart disease in babies in the mother's womb with a test known as fetal echocardiography.

Now a day, almost every congenital heart disease has complete cure. The child leads a normal and healthy life after treatment. There is a strong misconception in our society that these babies are incurable but I would like to stress again that almost every congenital heart disease has complete cure.

Both surgical and non surgical treatment is done depending upon the kind of illness right from a newborn baby to a grown up child.

Incidence of acquired heart disease has been increasing in teen age children due to obesity, lack of exercise, junk food eating and unhealthy lifestyle. More and more children are falling prey of these life threatening diseases because of our lifestyle and environmental pollution. These children have high chances of heart attack in their early thirties or forties. We can prevent these future mishaps if we take care of our children in teen age. If the child is obese, or diabetic or having sedentary life style then a paediatric heart specialist should be consulted so that he can assess the condition of heart and lifestyle modifications can be planned in form of proper diet and exercise to prevent future hazards.